


Twice

by BurgerBurgerBurger



Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Post-Canon, they both deserved better and they deserved each other most of all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27604412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurgerBurgerBurger/pseuds/BurgerBurgerBurger
Summary: She knows she will have to walk away, just like the countless other times the Wheel mocked her love, refusing to weave her closer to the person she most needed, because this silence is breaking her more than Tarmon Gai'dan ever could.
Relationships: Moiraine Damodred/Siuan Sanche
Comments: 13
Kudos: 22





	Twice

**Author's Note:**

> Am I editing and reposting a Wheel of Time Moiraine/Siuan story from 2014? Yes, I am. If you read this in its original form, kudos to you and I'm glad to have you back! If you didn't, let us not speak of the dark times.
> 
> Major series spoilers ahead, so please stop if you haven't finished _A Memory of Light_ and intend to!
> 
> Even years later my heart still breaks when I think of these two. Everything is canon up until the end of TOM and diverges throughout AMOL.

They sit in a loaded silence, one staring at the ceiling, one at the tiles of the sterile infirmary. Moiraine folds her hands demurely in her lap while Siuan picks at gauze and scabs and anything her fingernails can catch. Moiraine jarred her awake long ago, motionless beside her bed, statue still in her perpetual state of thoughtful misery, but neither one has spoken. There is too much to say.

The Dragon won, the New Age began, Gareth died, Thom was bonded. The world is forever changed.

When she finally drags her mind from its mournful reverie, Moiraine is the first to speak in a wavering voice, "Did you love him, Siuan?"

"Yes."

Her reply is truncated, immediate. She answers without hesitation from her propped up stack of pillows in the sparse bed, skin ghostly pale except where her flesh is regrowing as shiny and pink as a Southern Hookmouth's scales. The burns stretch across her left side, a gruesome, continuous splotch painted across her from stomach to chin. The Yellows could only do so much cosmetic healing after the _damane_ 's clumsy initial attempt at piecing her body back together.

It scorches Moiraine to the core— worse than tumbling to her death against Lanfear, worse than the flaying sensation of the Eelfinn draining her soul and power— that she will always be a consolation prize to the only person she's ever loved. Destined be the first conquest, placed on a shelf and quickly forgotten.

"There was no more news from you." Siuan scowls before spitefully adding, "No ripples on the water."

Her sea green eyes fix onto another target: a porcelain washbasin, the closet full of supplies, the shabby windowsill across the room. Anything but Moiraine.

"They shamed me, they beat me, they Stilled me, they killed Alric, and I wept in that bloody cell because I'd not heard from you in _months_ ," she spits. "I fled the Tower like a runaway and fought every day just to stay alive, and thought for certain I'd be executed anyway. I thought you'd abandoned me, and- and he was there when I was so alone. After you died—"

Her chest heaves, unable to continue, and the crackling stretch of her burned skin lingers as her lungs expand. Siuan looks impossibly young, not a minute older than the day they gained the Shawl, and she finally she manages to meet Moiraine's icy eyes, barely holding the steady gaze that once brought her such respite. She thickly murmurs, "Yes, I loved Gareth. I loved him with all that was left of my heart."

Moiraine's stomach flips violently, a sharp and final motion, and she thinks that this must be how Warders feel when a blade slides through their insides. She dares not move a muscle.

_What does that mean, my Siuan?_ she wonders. _Is there nothing left of you for me to love?_ _When I heard you'd been executed I wrote my last letter to you, tied it to a stone, and sunk it in a river. I promised myself I'd die soon after to join you- to complete our mission. I attacked Lanfear knowing you'd be proud._

She says nothing for a long moment, frozen composure a comfortable mask. She isn't ready to speak those words, though they claw up the back of her throat. She swallows them down, managing only to say, "I wrote letters, Siuan. I wrote you every day."

"I heard _nothing_ from you, Moiraine!" she snarls, black hair flying as she lunges forward, straining her body and bandages, the bed creaking beneath her weight. She has never made Moiraine flinch before, cringing at her harshness. Siuan was always so gentle with her little Cairhienin girl.

In her embarrassment and frustration, Moiraine bites back. No one riles her like Siuan, not even insufferable Lan or stubborn Nynaeve. She could face the temper of the mad, unpredictable Dragon Reborn with humility and calm, but she will put this disrespectful fisherman's daughter in her place.

"And what of you?" Moiraine's voice is cool and low. They have both seen the end of days, but the chill of her tone strikes fear into Siuan's heart, her dark eyebrows furrowed in abrupt concern. "You sent me away and then you died. You died _twice_ , Siuan Sanche. _Two times_ you left me alone."

Siuan turns her face away like a petulant child. She can't look at her accuser, but waves her statement aside with a casual hand. "The first time was untrue, and the second wasn't as bad as all that."

Moiraine grabs her wrist and doesn't release it, her delicate knuckles bloodless and unyielding.

"Min says your heart stopped beating in that command post."

"I obviously wasn't-"

"She says that if she, Matrim Cauthon, and those _damane_ hadn't been nearby, you would have never woken."

She slowly, methodically, pins Siuan's hand to the white sheets at her side, safely away from the burns on her hip. The motion screams, "stop picking, stop waving, stop moving, you will only hurt yourself," and Siuan's forearm tenses in her grip, unused to being physically restrained by anyone, much less a woman as reserved as Moiraine. The former Amyrlin shrinks beneath her grasp and scrutiny, sinking into her pillows.

The bandages need changing, Moiraine notices, and she decides she will fix all of this if it ends in tears and screaming. She will mend this wound like it should have been mended in Chachin, when she lost her love the first time and fear glued closed her mouth. When her virgin heart learned the gnawing sting of regret.

Lan never asked her why she wept at night. He could feel the empty place in her soul where Siuan should be.

"Min says she pounded on your chest for _minutes_ before the Healing worked, and that Matrim said he would execute every _damane_ in Seanchan if that girl gave up on you. Her _sul'dam_ ordered her to stop weaving; she felt for your pulse and pronounced you dead." Her voice rises in a half-controlled fury, desperate and frayed, "Did you know that you were dead? That only Matrim's luck and Min's persistence saved you?"

Moiraine takes Siuan's head between her hands as if to Heal her, to kiss her, and whispers, "We were almost finished— finished with the work to which we've devoted our entire lives, Siuan— and you _died_ after everything we've survived. How could I live knowing that I didn't protect you? How could I forgive myself for that sin a second time?"

The Tairen looks away, her face puffy from days of mourning and lingering pain, blinking back new tears that form unbidden in her eyes. She can't hold Moiraine's gaze and never could. Anyone but Moiraine. Her lips tremble as she presses her cheek into the warmth of Moiraine's open palm, trying to turn away, trying to hide her face, ashamed at what transpired between them.

"It doesn't matter now," Moiraine murmurs, and the pad of her thumb brushes against her strong jawline. She could never resist touching Siuan, never withhold her support and reassurances, even as they bored a hole through the core of her chest. "I hope he was the prince you always dreamed of marrying, my heart."

She leans forward, pressing her lips to Siuan's pale forehead in a chaste, sweet kiss. She knows she will have to walk away, just like the countless other times the Wheel mocked her love, refusing to weave her closer to the person she most needed, because this silence is breaking her more than Tarmon Gai'dan ever could.

"He reminded me of you," Siuan chokes. A sob racks her body as tears fall, unrestrained at last. "So calm and collected and driven. He was a substitute and I loved him for it, for filling the hole you left." She gasps, "I didn't want a bloody prince, Moiraine. I wanted you."

A sharp inhale shatters Moiraine's trance, and there is no holding back now. Her hand slips to Siuan's neck, cold blue eyes wide in shock. Through the relief and confusion she knows only one thing with absolute certainty: she will not lose her again.

"We were so _impossibly_ stupid to separate the way we did. We should have taken the gamble and should have worked as a pair. Should have found al'Thor together— been _physically_ together—"

"Siuan, stop."

Siuan sniffles, eyebrows knitting together in hurt. Her hands reach out for Moiraine's waist, tremulous and hesitant, as if she cannot bear more distance between them after closing the gap at last. The dark circles beneath her eyes deepen when she sulks, but she is every bit as gorgeous as a sailor's warning sunrise: fiery and unforgiving and endless.

"Say that you wanted me," Moiraine murmurs. "Say you still do."

Her fingers rest on the base of Siuan's neck, nails weaving between strands of soft, straight hair. They would sit like this as Accepted whenever Siuan grew frustrated with the circuitous politics of the Tower. She'd rant to Moiraine that the Aes Sedai would be better off with a blunt, straightforward leader to guide the shifty-eyed secret-keepers in the Hall, and the shorter girl would agree, shushing and petting her until her rage melted away like snow in the sun. When she'd first slept wrapped in Siuan's arms until the morning bell sounded, Moiraine woke thinking she would follow her precious puzzlemaster to the ends of the earth. Fate still laughs at them.

The widow heaves a quivering sigh, opening a half-healed scab on her ribs. Her eyes leak like her wound, and she would later tell Moiraine that she wondered how she would ever recover from the losses she'd suffered. Her death sent Gareth bellowing to his end in a furious mob of Trollocs, but she didn't feel his loss— the bond severed when her heart stopped— and his soul departed alone like poor Alric's. She would tell her that she abandoned them both, and is cursed to live an eternity with her survivor's guilt, a woman with a knack for killing those who love her most, all for a cause that hardly seems an equivalent exchange in retrospect.

But for now she says, "I have wanted you to be mine since I first saw you in the Tower, and will want you until the Wheel stops turning."

Moiraine leans forward, brushing her forehead and nose against Siuan's, her body awash with a radiating heat, with a joy she has never fully allowed herself to welcome. Siuan closes her eyes and breathes, "But I can't, Moiraine. I will cause you more pain, and I cannot brave that storm."

Her pink lips hover just out of reach as Moiraine replies, "I am in pain every second you are away, and the greatest agony I've ever endured was leaving your side. I need you to stay with me."

She tilts her head slowly until their lips touch, just as warm and wet as their nights in the Tower, and her body alights fully, her kiss the negative of balefire: a rebirth, a blooming garden, a story rewritten in the Pattern. Moiraine parts her lips, tasting the salt of her tears on her tongue as Siuan's hands slide into the thick waves of her hair. She holds the back of her head as if she never intends to release her, allowing only one hand to glides across Moiraine's silk skirt, thumb grazing her hipbone possessively, always hungry for more, always impatient.

Moiraine gently pulls back, brushing aside the wayward bangs that fall across her blushing face. She is more breathless than she anticipated when she says, "We should move slowly. You're recovering more than just physically, and we have so much to discuss."

Rubbing her bloodshot eyes, Siuan pouts, "Fish guts, Moiraine. That kiss didn't exactly scream 'I want to have a meaningful conversation with you.'"

Moiraine smiles— her teasing annoys Siuan, it has _always_ annoyed her, and her leisurely pace has driven her mad with desire too— but leans forward to press a decidedly innocent kiss to her lips. "There will be more. Many more. But we both need time." After a long pause her own words settle fully, and the iodine scent of the infirmary grounds her firmly in reality. She takes both of Siuan's hands between her own and murmurs sadly, "Don't send me away again. Don't leave me."

She is quiet for so long that Moiraine is afraid she's asked too much. Perhaps her greatest fear is true: she has always loved Siuan more than Siuan loved her in return.

"What if I hurt you again?" Siuan asks in response, drowning under the weight of her emotions. She loathes weakness, but loathes other people seeing her weakness even more, especially the person she most wants to protect.

Moiraine stares at her sadly for a long moment, then embraces the Source, weaving a thread of Air to the pile of rolled bandages across the room. It floats lazily to her hand, unraveling midair. She opens Siuan's white robe without preamble and unties her stained wrappings. Siuan hisses in pain and surprise, back arching as she grimaces, but Moiraine continues undeterred. For a moment Siuan looks as if she might faint under her nurse's blasé ministrations, and the only thing keeping her conscious is the needle-sharp pain that jolts her with every motion.

"There," Moiraine ties a crisp knot. "Now we've both hurt each other, and I'll not hear another word about it, Siuan. Accept that our lives have not been simple. Accept that we've both made mistakes. Most of all, accept that I want to be with you and only you. Now scoot over."

Though her mother would swoon and her father shrivel if they heard their well-bred, well-raised, well-educated daughter profess her love so forwardly, Moiraine knows that reserved, roundabout Cairhienin courting games would prove completely ineffective on Siuan. For all her cleverness, the former Amyrlin needs to be knocked senseless to understand what is right in front of her— what has _always_ been right in front of her— but she lies astounded in the tiny bed until Moiraine squeezes in on her uninjured side.

Siuan responds to her slowly, inching closer, until they are side-by-side again on the pillows, sinking lower and closer, the same way they shared them at the Tower. This time she initiates the kiss, fingertips trembling on Moiraine's cheek, smiling against her lips. The stretch of her arm obviously pains her, but she reaches out eagerly, as if overwhelmed by desire to touch Moiraine's porcelain skin, and she doesn't stop her.

She will tell Siuan later in a soft, pensive voice that they will learn to grow from the hurts and gnawing fears, the loneliness and the longing, because now they are together: unstoppable, whole, healing. Siuan will kiss her deeply then, thankful in spite of everything, and she will whisper her gratitude into the shell of Moiraine's ear as she holds her, wrapped safely in her arms where she has always belonged.

But for now Siuan laughs, just the little amount of mirth that her injury will afford her, and asks with a rueful grin, "How did I ever manage without you?"

Moiraine stares at her, dumbfounded. "Siuan, you didn't manage at all. You quite literally died."

"Yes, well. I was never very good at following directions."

The scent of aloe salve blends with underlying notes of sandalwood and jasmine, a combination she'd often dreamed about, but never believed she'd enjoy firsthand again. It is her favorite scent, and the most soothing one she knows.She arranges herself delicately to avoid Siuan's burns. Moiraine giggles despite herself, exhausted but tranquil, and rests her head on Siuan's shoulder. She presses her body to the warmth at her side and thinks that the whole world has shifted around them, but nothing has changed between them. The easy restfulness, the laughter, the security: she has always been home with Siuan by her side.

"No, you weren't," Moiraine smiles. "We'll have to work on that."

They sit in a comfortable silence, memorizing each other like there is nothing else in the world to see. Moiraine's head rests peacefully on Siuan's strong shoulder, rising and falling as she breathes, thumb rubbing tender circles on her arm. Siuan traces swirling patterns on Moiraine's waist, as petite and ravishing as ever, and relishes the quiet they share.

They have said all there is to say.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! All supportive comments are appreciated, and please pour one out for my magic homegirls.


End file.
